The lunch hour was almost over. It was hot and humid. People walked back to their places of work, eager to get out of the heat and into air-conditioned buildings. Eighty-eight year old James Wenneker von Brunn steered his car into a parking place near the 14th Street entrance of The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington D.C. It was June 10, 2009. James von Brunn / Image courtesy sezginalay.myblog.it

Von Brunn double-parked his car. It didn’t matter, because he knew he wouldn’t be coming back. The car would be towed. Then it would sit in some impound yard, waiting to be claimed. It would never be claimed.

The old man got out of the car and walked toward the building. He carried something long and slender in his right hand.

Seeing the elderly gentleman approaching the entrance, Stephen Tyron Johns politely opened the door and held it. Johns was a museum security guard. His job was to protect the premises and all those in it. Johns liked his job and he liked people, so he instinctively held the door open.